


Small Beginnings

by traitorhero



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: For Want of a Nail, Gen, Time Travel, pre-me1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-08 03:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/756476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traitorhero/pseuds/traitorhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One thing changed, and history as it had been known was forever altered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

The comm beeped, breaking Hannah’s concentration. She glanced over at it, then back at her daughter who was intently studying the cards in front of her face.  
  
“Go fish,” she said, setting her cards down. “Mommy’s got to take this, okay?”   
  
Her daughter nodded, setting down her own cards. Hannah reached across the table and ruffled her hair as she got up.  
  
“Shepard,” she said, answering the comm. “Is there a problem?”  
  
“Ma’am, sorry to disturb you on your off hours,” the man on the other end of the line said. “The new scientist we picked up, Jeffries -,”  
  
“The new twitchy guy,” Hannah replied. “He's helping with the eezo core fluctuations, if I remember correctly. Does he need something?”  
  
“No, ma’am. He started mumbling about some reaper, completely lost it. Locked himself in the main control room. Could I have your access codes?”  
  
“Sure,” she said. “Transmitting them now.”  
  
“Thank you ma’am - damn it!”  
  
“Something wrong?” she asked.  
  
“He accessed the main systems and blocked us,” he said. “And I just lost comms with the guys trying to get in to him.”  
  
The sound of a chair distracted Hannah for a moment. She turned around to see her daughter go into their small bathroom. Shaking her head, she returned to the conversation.  
  
“Could you patch me through to him? I might be able to talk him out.”  
  
“Sure,” he said. “Looks like there’s still a channel open to the room. I’ll transfer you over to it, but I’ll keep this line open as well.”  
  
“Thank you,” Hannah said. She pulled up the vid screen. The scientist was busy at work at the main platform. Its orange glow gave made his skin shine with a deathly pallor. She cleared her throat, making him jump and look around for the source.  
  
“Jeffries?” she said. “This is Staff Lieutenant Shepard. I need you to step away from the console and open the door.”  
  
“Can’t do that,” Jeffries replied. “Especially not for a Shepard. Definitely not for a Shepard. They wouldn’t like that.”  
  
“Who wouldn’t like that?” Hannah asked. Jeffries had gone back to his work, but continued his ramblings.  
  
“The Reapers,” he said, his voice full of awe. “The Reapers are coming, but the Shepard has stopped them before. But this time that won’t happen. I can stop it from happening; stop the Shepard from destroying the Reapers.”  
  
“Jeffries, you’re not well,” Hannah said. “Open the doors. We need to take you to the med bay and get you looked at.”  
  
“I can’t do that,” Jeffries said. “You don’t, you can’t understand what I need to do. I found out how to go back, to stop the Shepard. The others tried to stop me, but they couldn’t. And here I am, to stop the Shepard in her infancy.”  
  
“Jeffries, you need to open the door,” Hannah repeated. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her daughter come out of the bathroom and get back in her chair. “You need medical attention."

“You have no idea, no understanding of what I’m doing. The Reapers will come and they will save all of us. Through our destruction they are our salvation. Shepard didn’t understand that and destroyed them,” Jeffries ranted. His fingers began to type frantically on the keyboard. He turned slightly to look at the camera. Through the vid screen his eyes were bright, through a malfunction with the program or madness, Hannah didn’t know.  
  
“Then help me to understand. What are the Reapers?”  
  
“Oh, it's too late for you,” Jeffries said. “Too late for the mother, the one who helped create the future.”  
  
He stopped typing and walked over to the camera, his face filling the screen. “I’m doing as you asked, Staff Lieutenant Shepard. I’m opening the doors. All of the doors, all the seals.”  
  
Hannah felt her eyes widen as she switched comms. “Corporal,” she shouted, “sound the hull breach alarm. Jeffries is going to vent the ship!”  
  
She didn’t bother waiting for a reply. Hannah ran to her dresser, pulling out her hardsuit, along with her daughter’s. As she did so, her stomach sank. There was a rip along the arm of the smaller suit. Throwing it on the floor, she took her suit and went to her daughter.  
  
“Mommy?” her daughter asked. Hannah gave her a weak smile at the scared look on her daughter's face.  
  
“You need to wear Mommy’s suit, okay?” she said. It wasn’t the best fit, and hung past the child-sized arms, but it would protect her. She double checked the oxygen tank and the carbon scrubbers to make sure there was nothing wrong. “And you need to promise me that you will not take off the helmet until someone comes and takes it off for you. Can you do that?”  
  
Her daughter nodded, and Hannah gathered her into a hug. Tucking a piece of flyaway hair behind her ear, Hannah gave her a kiss on the forehead. The helmet went on, bright child eyes barely visible through the tint of the visor, and Hannah put her back in her chair. There was still silence over the alarm system. Hannah went back to the open comm.  
  
“Why isn’t the alarm sounding?” she said.  
  
“Ma’am, he’s cut all access to the systems. All comms are down, including distress beacons. He somehow managed to seal off the cockpit, as well. I'm trapped in here,” he said. Hannah turned and looked at her vid screen, where Jeffries seemed to be finishing his work.  
  
“Do you have an emergency suit, corporal?” Hannah asked.   
  
“No ma’am,” the corporal replied. She could almost picture the terror on his face.  
  
“What’s your name, soldier?”  
  
“Adrian Pataculla,” he stuttered in reply.  
  
“Adrian, there is nothing we can do. I’m setting our comm to record. The ship has been hijacked by one of our personnel. Please verify.”

“We have been taken over by a hostile force,” Adrian said. “Oh, god -,”  
  
“My name is Staff Lieutenant Hannah Shepard,” she said. “At 1200 hours one of our scientists locked himself in the operations center of the ship with the intent of venting the ship’s atmosphere. To reiterate, the SSV London is under hostile control, with little hope of control being regained.”  
  
Hannah took a deep breath and leaned against her console. She could hear the muffled sound of tears on the other end of the comm. Looking behind her, she saw that her daughter had decided to peek at her mother’s hand. She straightened, rubbing her eyes.  
  
“Do you have any personal messages?” she asked Adrian. “To family, loved ones?”  
  
“My mom,” he said, his voice thick. “She lives on Terra Nova, 4231 New York Avenue. If-,” he took a deep breath and steadied his voice. “If someone could tell her that I’m with my dad? That we’ll be waiting for her at our old fishing hole?”  
  
Hannah felt a small, sad smile tugging at her lips. “I’m sure they’ll get the message to her.”  
  
“What about you ma’am?” Adrian asked.  
  
“I only have my daughter,” she replied. “Lucy Shepard. I was going to transfer to a ground position after this voyage to raise her. I put her in my suit, in my cabin. I want her to know, someday, that I love her very much. I’m sorry I won’t be there for anything, like her first date or wedding day. But I’ll always be with her, even though she can’t see me. I love you, honey. I’ll always watch over you.”  
  
Both of them were silent after she finished. Hannah looked at the vid-screen. Jeffries appeared to have finished his work, looking at the monitor with dead eyes.  
  
“Ma’am?” Adrian asked. “How much longer do we have?”  
  
“I don’t -,”  
  
She cut herself off, coughing violently. The very air seemed to vanish, taking away any sounds she could have made. Opening her mouth, she tried to take in any remaining oxygen. Her legs collapsed beneath her as she fell on all fours. Her lungs seized, rejecting the idea that there was nothing given to them. Her arms gave out, and her head hit the floor. She could see her daughter trying to get up, tripping on the suit that was saving her. The corners of Hannah’s vision began to turn black as her daughter reached her. She tried to put on a brave face, but the pain made her eyebrows furrow and her mouth twist in a grimace.  
  
Her vision went completely black. Hannah tried to force it back, to see her daughter’s face again. Her hands spasmed, scrabbling weakly against the metal floor of the cabin. She wasn’t ready, her daughter needed - 

* * *

 Lucy sat by her mother’s corpse. She pushed against her shoulder, rocking the body. Hannah's eyes didn’t move, staring past her daughter. Inside the helmet tears began to drip down her face. She laid down next to her mother, cuddling into her chest, her shoulders shaking as she tried to understand.


	2. Chapter 2

Even through their hardsuits, it wasn’t difficult to tell that the marines were anxious. The SSV London hadn’t checked in for over a day. No hails had been answered as their cruiser had pulled up alongside, which explained itself when they saw it.  
  
All docking ports and hangars had been opened, their mass effect fields disabled. A few bodies had drifted near the entrances, showing signs of rapid exposure to vacuum. None of them had hardsuits or emergency suits on, which meant that whatever happened, it had been too quick for them to do anything about it.  
  
The marines aboard the shuttle snapped to attention when they were set down on the floor of one of the docking bays. Their CO hadn’t said a word during the ride, and even now used hand signals to indicate what they were to do. The hatch slid open, sucking the air out of the shuttle, and destroying any sound their boots made.  
  
“Mag boots until we re-pressurize,” their commanding officer said.  
  
“Yes, Commander Hackett,” they replied over the inter-suit comms.  
  
“Elroy, Scott, on me,” he continued. “Groups of three, fan out across the decks. Search for anything that will give us an idea of what happened here. We’ll head to the operations hub to see if we can’t get the mass effect fields working again.”  
  
The men and women in front of him saluted, before breaking into groups of three. Elroy and Scott came and stood behind him, a little off his shoulders. Hackett evaluated his team as they moved towards the elevator.   
  
Elroy was a short woman, just barely the regulation height for a soldier. But she had graduated with honors from the Alliance Combat Engineering School. The engineers aboard the SSV Budapest had taken to calling her their grease rat. More often than not, when she was seen on the upper decks she had black stains on her uniform.  
  
Scott was her complete opposite, wiry where she was muscled, tall where she was short. He was also the more talkative of the two, but hadn’t said more than a few words since they had entered a synchronized orbit with the dead ship.  
  
The elevator was working, Hackett noted with some concern. That meant that the power hadn’t been compromised, which meant that there was some sort of localized catastrophic failure of the eezo core. But the ship was still in orbit. If the eezo core had failed, the ship would have been pulled into an atmospheric orbit, before crashing to the surface.  
  
That only left one option. Hackett wasn’t sure what to make of his feelings on the matter.  
  
“Clear, sir,” Scott said, angling himself out onto the engineering deck. Hackett nodded, Elroy following him out into the hallway.  
  
There were men and women sprawled on the floor. They had suffered more than their comrades on the deck below. Many of them were grasping at their throats, their eyes wide and panicked. A few looked to have been reaching for the elevator. None of them had a hardsuit or emergency suit.  
  
“How many were aboard?” he asked Elroy, his pistol falling to his side. He waved for Scott to put his weapon away as well.  
  
“Three hundred staff, forty-five civilian contractors, and thirty-eight civilians in transport,” Elroy replied. “There could be survivors -,”  
  
“No alarms,” Hackett said. “Something happened to disable them. Or someone disabled them. The people in here had twenty seconds at most to react.”

Hackett knelt down, closing the eyes of one of the women. With a shake of his head, he stood. “The Alliance doesn’t have any protocols regarding the storage of emergency suits. That will change,” he said. “How far are we from the operations hub?”  
  
“Just down this hallway,” Scott said.  
  
“Good,” Hackett said. “Teams Two through Four, check in.”  
  
“Team Three, reporting in,” a female voice said over the comms. “We’re on the crew deck. There’s a lot of bodies up here.”  
  
“Check and record all tags,” Hackett ordered. “Omni-tool photos of all civilians. These people deserve their last respects.”  
  
“Yes, sir.”  
  
“Team Two, reporting,” another said. “We’re in the CIC. Looks like the forward has been sealed off. We could have some survivors.”  
“Hackett stopped his team outside the operations hub. “Try all frequencies of communication. Do not attempt to open the door until we know more.”  
  
“Understood. Cycling frequencies now, sir,” he reported. “We’ll report back if we get anything.”  
  
“My team is about to enter the operations hub,” Hackett told them. “Team Four, anything on the flight deck?”  
  
“Just getting some of the drifters to a more secure position,” the leader replied. “We’re tying them down with some loose harnesses. To be honest, sir, it’d be nice to have those fields up again.”  
  
“Working on it Lieutenant,” Hackett said. “We’re attempting to open the hub now.”  
  
Elroy had knelt down in front of the door, her omni-tool scanning the lock. Her forehead creased as she tapped in a different command. That didn’t seem to work either. She stood, kicking the door in frustration.  
  
“The door’s jammed, good and tight,” she said. “The base code’s been changed like I’ve never seen before, but it still reads like something taught in the Alliance.”  
  
“Can you break it?”   
  
“I don’t know,” she replied. “If I knew how the code originated and what form the base took, sure. But this is light-years ahead of anything we were taught. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it wasn’t even Alliance.”  
  
Hackett nodded at her explanation. “Scott, does your omni-tool have a torch setting?”  
  
“Just a couple taps away,” he said.  
  
“Elroy, step away from the door,” Hackett said. “We’re going to do this the quick and dirty way.”  
  
She stepped away from the door, her omni-tool going into a dormant state. Both men activated their omni-tools, the tips glowing blue-white. Hackett started from the bottom, meeting Scott in the middle of the door. The lock fizzled and died, the doors cracking open. Elroy stepped in, pushing against the halves until the magnetic locks clicked and drew them back.

There was a lone man slumped over the console. On Hackett’s direction, Elroy and Scott lifted the body and placed it on the floor. Scott knelt down beside him and catalogued his tags, while Hackett and Elroy looked over the console. Elroy scowled as she took control of it, tapping a few commands in.  
  
“Something wrong, Engineer Elroy?” Hackett asked.  
  
“It’s nothing, sir,” she said.  
  
“It’s never nothing,” Hackett said. “On my team, I expect you to be able to tell me anything. That includes any thoughts on the mission.”  
  
“Yes sir. It’s just, the way this was done,” she said. “There are easier ways to shut down life support and turn off the mass effect fields. This is sloppy. There are all sorts of systems that were turned off or fried. Hell, the core could have been overloaded and the ship blown to pieces with a few different commands.”  
  
“So it could have been an outside source?”  
  
“It’s possible,” Elroy said. “But the code that was used was based in Alliance formulas. Even if someone else got ahold of that information, why would they use it to attack a cruiser? It makes more sense to attack Arcturus Station if they were going for the maximum number of casualties.”  
  
“Maybe it was a trial run,” Scott replied. “See if the code worked, then try it on something bigger.”  
  
“We would have heard about information of that level going missing,” Elroy said. “It’s a major security risk.”  
  
“You have a different theory?” Hackett asked.  
  
“The command to lock the doors came from inside this room,” Elroy replied. “There’s no way that someone could hack all these systems from the outside. You’d have to be inside the room.”  
  
All three of them turned to look at the body.  
  
“Are you sure, Elroy?” Hackett asked.  
  
“As sure as I can get without dismantling the system,” she said. “I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong -”  
  
“Commander Hackett?” the leader of Team Two said over the comms. “The cockpit doors just unlocked. No survivors, but,” he cut off, saying something to a member of his squad. “Um, sir, transmitting this to you.”

“ _The ship has been hijacked by one of our personnel_ ,” a crackly voice said, sharpening as the team leader adjusted it for them. “ _My name is Staff Lieutenant -_ ”  
  
“Hannah,” Hackett said. He stepped away from the console in shock, his hands falling to his sides. Elroy and Scott looked at him, their curiosity evident. He waved them off, listening to the rest of the message.  
  
“ _... My daughter. I was going to transfer to a ground position after this voyage to raise her. I put her in my suit, in my cabin._ ”  
  
“Team Three, are you receiving?” Hackett asked, striding out of the operations hub.  
  
“Yes sir,” she reported. “Heading to the Officer’s quarters.”  
  
“I’ll be there momentarily,” he replied. “Wait for me. Elroy, get those fields back up. Scott, on me.”  
  
Scott jogged to catch up with him. He jumped into the elevator just before Hackett slammed his hand onto the floor button.  
  
“Commander?” he said. “This Hannah -”  
  
“A colleague.” Hackett told him. “She served under me on the SSV Hastings.”  
  
“Could the girl still be alive?” Scott asked, picking up on his superior’s agitation.  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
Scott nodded, realizing the end of the conversation. The elevator stopped on the crew deck, Hackett storming out as soon as the doors were open. The other team stood near the end of the hall. He waved for them to open the door. The doors opened with no resistance, allowing the other two members of Team Three to enter and clear it. Hackett and Scott followed them, their eyes drawn to the body on the floor, and the small bundle of an emergency suit beside it.  
  
“Oh, Hannah,” Hackett said. Her eyes were open and bloodshot, a few of the veins having burst and colored her eyes. Her mouth was turned down in a pained grimace. He brushed his fingers over her eyelids, closing them.  
  
The bundle next to her moved, trying to snuggle into Hannah’s chest. One of his marines swore, his hand going for his pistol on instinct. Hackett turned towards him, giving him the signal to stand down. The marine nodded, giving an almost sheepish nod in return.  
  
“Hello?” Hackett asked. He switched on the speakers embedded in his helmet. The bundle turned towards him, the visor showing him a head of hair. “My name is Commander Hackett of the SSV Geneva. We’re here to help.”  
  
He did not expect the girl to leap towards him. Their helmets collided with a clink, but the child clung to him as much as she could through the suit.  
  
“Hackett to all teams, Teams One and Three are reporting back to the shuttle. We have a survivor, medical condition unknown. Continue log duty until the shuttle returns. Hackett out.”  
  
Scooping the girl into his arms, Hackett moved towards the elevator, Team Three trailing behind him. Scott followed after a moment, staying behind to record Hannah Shepard on the lists of the dead. He caught up to Hackett and pressed a pair of dog tags into his open hand.  
  
“For the girl,” he said. “She won’t get much of anything until the Alliance finishes processing the ship.”  
  
“They were around her neck when we found her, weren’t they?” Hackett asked, dropping the chain over her head.


End file.
